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Old Warlok
The ancestral language of the Warlok family, Old Warlok has a much more regular sound system than its most widely spoken descendant, Viisyal. However, grammatically the two are very similar : regular sound change, a mutated verb conjugation system, and an influx of loanwords from the Rotenmuhl languages make up the largest differences. Phonology Consonants It is likely that Old Warlok had begun the process of palatising the voiced clicks and softening X to h, since the effects of both changes are apparent in all but one daughter language. Old Warlok dictionaries do not record this sound distinction, but by the language's late period, records of slang were already interchanging the letter /c/ and digraph /t s/ to refer to ʇ where /t s/ is a supposed approximation for the modern pronunciation of the letter /c/, tɕ. Vowels Phonotactics & ToneEdit The syllable structure of Old Warlok is CVF, where C is a consonant, V is a vowel or dipthong, and F is a final minor syllable. The minor syllable contains a consonant and a devoiced (or omitted) u. Final consonants began to mutate dependent on vowel length in the middle period. The devoiced u was completely omitted from ŋu̥ and ɺu̥ and ʔu̥ by the late period, and ŋ had mutated to N. Most importantly, the final glottal stop ʔu̥ mutated into a high tone in Viisyal and Warlok, and was lost entirely in Pataka. Reconstruction of its use as a final syllable comes from Old Warlok dictionaries, and its retention in one dialect of Warlok. Previous to this tone mutation, Old Warlok had only a pitch accent system. This sytem's rules remain the same as the tone section described in Viisyal, sans the use of tone distinguished words. In writing, Old Warlok developed separate symbols to represent the final syllables. Of these, only three remain as separate symbols (-pu̥ -tu̥ -nu̥), whereas others merged with other symbols that had similar shapes and sound values (-ɬu̥ > X, -ɺu̥ > ɺ, -ku̥ > !), and final ʔu̥ became the question mark. Historical Sound Change The following chart presents the regular sound changes from Old Warlok phonemes to its daughter languages. *Glottal stop marked with an asterisk to represent its mutation into tones in Viisyal and Warlok, final loss in Pataka, and intervocalic loss in all three. Sounds separated by a comma are allophones in free variation. Consonants separated by a slash mutate based on the following vowel. *nʇ became tɬ intervocally and ɺʲ initially. The final consonants separated by tildes mutate based on the length of the proceeding vowel. The first final consonant follows short vowels. The second follows long vowels. Pataka has only one true final consonant derived from ŋu̥. Romanisation of Old Warlok Syntax Word Order Old Warlok orders its sentences head finally. Words proceed in Subject-Object-Verb SOV order with the following finer distinctions : Noun Phrase > Adjective > Noun > Case Marker > Adverb > Verb (conjugation suffixes) Politeness There are four registers of politeness in Old Warlok : informal, formal, supplicative, and royal. One must always be conscious of one's politeness register when speaking to another individual, based on social standing and age. These registers largely correspond to their Viisyal counterparts, so for more information see Viisyal's Politeness section. Case Marking Old Warlok marks case on nouns and noun phrases by using case marking particles. All particles come after the nouns or noun phrases they modify. These particles do not attach to the nouns or noun phrases. However, the genitive no when used with pronouns and demonstratives can be treated as one word. More complex prepositions appear as combinations in the pattern of /N no P mi/ where N is a noun and P is a noun being used as a preposition. Eg. /nakw/, usually "centre", becomes "inside of" in /N no nakw mi/. The lative marker /ei/ is used for verbs with a sense of active ongoing movement, such as the preposition "towards." Errata For all grammatical forms not listed on this page, assume that they mirror those of Viisyal, but with historical sound change applied. Verbs Verbs appear after nouns, adjectives, and noun phrases : head-final. Verbs are conjugated with suffixes to the verb stem. Verbs are listed under their -ra (simple indicative present) form, so the stem is found by simply dropping -ra. Suffixes can stack in the order Formality > Modality > Mood > Voice > Aspect > Negation > Voice > Emphasis. Formality decides how the verb suffixes will be conjugated, and any suffixes follow in the above order. Since Old Warlok shares most of its verb construction with Viisyal, moreinformation on howto employ the cases may be found in Viisyal's Verb Section. Below the Old Warlok versions of the cases are listed. Modality Mood Voice Aspect Negation Emphasis Politeness Registers Request Forms Nouns Nouns do not decline. If a plural is absolutely needed, the suffix /-le/ may be appended, usually in cases of emphasizing a group or when using pronouns. Context reliably informs whether a noun is being referred to in a singular or plural sense Pronouns V stands for vulgar, I for Informal, F for formal. Supplicative and regal pronouns use /-le/ for plurality only rarely, preferring not to use pronouns. Although there is no recurring vulgar register for verbs and syntax in Old Warlok, there was certainly one in pronouns. When compared to the Viisyal pronouns, we see a dramatic shift in politeness over the years such that /naʔepw/, modern Viisyal /met/, was once the formal term for "you" but is now the vulgar term. Likewise, /salui/ became two separate forms, the polite /ala'i/ and vulgar /za/. The once vulgar mutation of /nqo/ to /ka/ later became standard. The supplicatve and regal terms in first and second person have stayed the same largely due to being terms of office instead of true pronouns. The Old Warlok informal first and second person pronouns are now only seen in literature to give a ye olde tymes feel. Vocabulary A sample vocabulary ; compare with modern Viisyal's list. Example text Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 tuzyinwluuʔi uu ziyuu ba duuqeiqe epw, kihinw mo nukw mi pelwqe nyuujw ba ojalasu. zyinwluuʔi uu yuutw epw zeitw o youtwsajwqe, nowanw mi luuʔuwo no suwika ba o ukwdalusyiou. all-person-being SUB free INS born-IPFV-be-IPFV and.therefore dignity also rights DAT concerning-IPFV equal INS be.formal-PRES(formal) person-being SUB reason and conscience OBJ transfer-PASSIVE-IPFV mutual DAT same-family GEN essence.juice-self DAT formal-act-should(formal) All sentient beings are born free, and thus have both equal dignity and equal rights. Sentient beings are endowed with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in the spirit of family. Category:Languages